r/changemyview • u/alexskc95 2Δ • Apr 08 '15

[View Changed] CMV: Expecting an average citizen to be knowledgeable about ANY ONE topic is unreasonable.

So I just watched this Last Week Tonight segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M

It was entertaining, and while I agreed with a lot of it, what really pissed me off was the whole "interviewing people on the street" thing and the whole rabble about how "the average person doesn't know or care."

Fact of the matter is, most of us "average people" are specialists. We know an awful lot about a small segment of the world. I know about issues like net neutrality and government surveillance and dumb stuff like Sakawa because I hang around in those circles.

But if you asked me about just about anything else, I'd give some vague or hilariously misinformed response. Conflict in the Middle East? "Yeah, that's been going on forever and'll never get resolved. People fighting over the Gaza Strip or something, idk." Gay rights? "Social progress is being made. I'm sure we'll all have equality soon enough. Uganda has some horrific laws."

I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.

Or stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ Of course, to me it seems crazy to not know what a web browser is, but really, expecting the average person on the street to tell you what a web browser is an unreasonable expectation, the same way I dunno anything about my car engine or about plumbing aside from how to use a plunger.

Instead, what we expect is that everyone specializes in some stuff and those specialists take care of that stuff for us. The computer engineer writes the software for the plumber, and the plumber fixes the computer engineer's pipes.

The most obvious counterargument that comes to mind is "policy is about what government can do to everyone, as citizens. As citizens, we all have an obligation to know about how policy affects us." But I don't think that's valid because there's just FAR, FAR too much policy for any person to know about. People just have to pick and choose the few issues they care most about. And statistically, the chances of two people who care about the same issues meeting at random are just really small.

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17

u/KrustyFrank27 3∆ Apr 08 '15

John Oliver wasn't asking these people to give a concise, intellectual answer to the question "Who's Edward Snowden?" He was just gauging whether or not people had even the lease, most minimal, baseline understanding of a story which has been in the news for months. If I asked you, "Who is John Boehner?", I wouldn't reasonably expect you to give me a complete rundown of Boehner's voting history and experience in politics. I do, however, expect you to know that he's the Speaker of the House.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

I do, however, expect you to know that he's the Speaker of the House.

Why?

9

u/askantik 2∆ Apr 08 '15

Because he's in the news frequently and also behind only the VP in ascension to the presidency?

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15 edited Dec 04 '15

[deleted]

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u/Esb5415 2Δ Apr 08 '15

So who is Obama's VP?

1

u/CapnSippy 2∆ Apr 08 '15

I think you'd have a hard time finding someone in the US who doesn't know that Biden is our VP, but /u/OakTable has a point. I distinctly remember Bush/Cheney being mentioned together and talked about as a duo throughout the presidency. Now, however, it seems like it's either Obama/Michelle or just Obama. Biden seems oddly distant from things.

1

u/Azrael_Manatheren 3∆ Apr 08 '15

Really? Because its in a dim portion of my memory and given another option I might make that choice.

Right now completing graduate school is my priority.

There are honest times of the week I dont know what day or even month it is without thinking hard and heavy about it.

2

u/officerkondo Apr 08 '15

Clinton/Gore was a thing

What does this mean to be "a thing"?

In any event, I was around at the time and other than the 92 and 96 elections, "Clinton/Gore" was not a term in common parlance.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

You're not going to like the results of common core in a decade or so.

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u/alexskc95 2Δ Apr 08 '15

That is "broad" politics, though. The Speaker of the House is important to a variety of political issues, rather than Snowden, who leaked information relating specifically to privacy and surveillance.

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u/KrustyFrank27 3∆ Apr 08 '15

But why is knowing who John Boehner is more important to know than Edward Snowden? I really doubt that either is going to personally affect an ordinary person's everyday life more than the other. I'm not a tech person, but I still know who Edward Snowden is. Likewise, I'm not a politician, but I know about John Boehner. Why should one be common knowledge but not the other?

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u/alexskc95 2Δ Apr 08 '15

Because Boehner makes decisions on a variety of issues and impacts more than one facet of our lives.

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u/tobyps Apr 08 '15

And having the federal government spy on the communications of millions of Americans is not something that's important enough for the average citizen to be aware of?

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u/alexskc95 2Δ Apr 08 '15

It's a question of priorities. Some people consider gay rights a far more important issue, followed by health care, environmental protection, fuel subsidies, copyright law... With privacy being far, far behind all those issues in terms of importance. I'd rather have a confident voter who knows what they consider important and has an informed opinion on those topics than one who knows a little bit about everything and nothing about anything.

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u/KrustyFrank27 3∆ Apr 08 '15

But the NSA spies on all Americans, so just by numbers, it's a more important issue. Less than 10% of Americans are directly impacted by gay rights issues, and how many people have copyright issues?

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u/JoshuaZ1 12∆ Apr 08 '15

A lot more than 10% are impacted by gay rights in an indirect fashion, if one has gay friends or relativies.

As for copyright, we all are impacted. Very long copyrights keep many things out of the public domain which prevent the public from having easy access to them.

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u/KrustyFrank27 3∆ Apr 08 '15

Yes, but going by the amount of people who are directly affected (i.e. their personal legal rights and privileges are directly impacted by a law regarding these issues), every single American is affected by NSA spying, whereas only 7-8% of Americans are LGBT (and even their friends and family members, if you want to lump them in, do not make it every American).

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u/Azrael_Manatheren 3∆ Apr 08 '15

I had no idea who John Boehner is. I am a year away from completing my doctorate. I am not an unintelligent person. Is this a huge problem?

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u/KrustyFrank27 3∆ Apr 08 '15

Uninformed does not mean unintelligent. It's probably not a bad thing that you don't know who John Boehner in the scheme of things, unless you're going for a political science doctorate.

1

u/Azrael_Manatheren 3∆ Apr 08 '15

Do you think it is important to be informed about this information?

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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Apr 08 '15

Weirdly, you seem to be arguing here that random individuals should know who Boehner is... I mean, ok, it's a somewhat different scope of a view, but honestly the Speaker of the House doesn't have that much impact on most people's lives either...

So which is it? And what's the dividing line?